What was that Wordle-like game from the 2000s-2010s?

January 6, 2022 1:57 AM

I finally got hip to the Wordle craze today, and was surprised when I realized what it is. I remember playing something very, very similar within the last ~15 years. It was browser-based and single-player, and given a set of blank spaces with no initial clues, you had to guess the word. It wasn't limited to 1 word a day like Wordle is, though, and I think you got unlimited tries. The UI was much less shiny.

I don't have a good memory of time, and this could conceivably have been anywhere from 2005-2014. But I think it was on the earlier side--I remember talking about it on LiveJournal and/or the early days of Twitter. Possibly with other Mefites! What was it??

And because these have been suggested when I asked elsewhere today: It's not 1024, which involves numbers instead of words, and it's not Words with Friends, which is multiplayer off-brand Scrabble.

posted by rhiannonstone to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: Guess My Word?
posted by penguin pie at 2:30 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Wordle reminds me of a game called Jotto, which also involves guessing a five-letter word based on letter clues. The main difference as I recall is that in Jotto your opponent (or the app) tells you how many letters your guessed word has in common with the target word, but not which letters, or which positions.

I believe there was an online version of Jotto awhile back, but it may have had a different name because of copyright or branding reasons.
posted by Umami Dearest at 2:34 AM on January 6, 2022

There was a game show called Lingo with the exact same game mechanic, and there were plenty of phone apps that copied this.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:57 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've recently found Word Master, which is Wordle with (apparently) unlimited plays. The interface is essentially identical to Wordle.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:46 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Guess My Word was also a Metafilter FPP so my money is on that.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 9:07 AM on January 6, 2022

Response by poster: Yes, it's Guess My Word! I got a couple details wrong--you don't know the number of letters, and the clues generated by each attempt are the alphabet position of the word rather than which letters are right, but it has the same flavor as Wordle to me. And I definitely remember sharing with my friends the number of tries we were able to guess the word in.

Thanks penguin pie and rabbitbookworm!
posted by rhiannonstone at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Came late with Guess My Word, but I had the same question, was going to 'AskMe' but googled and found it.
posted by Obscure Reference at 1:49 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Just to add to the catalog after the fact, there's also Qiktionary, a mobile word game from the folks who bring you QI. It has similar gameplay to Wordle and has been around for about eight years.
posted by mumkin at 12:41 AM on January 7, 2022